and heidi moore. finance and editor of "the guardian newspapers. and dean baker, author of "the end of loser liberalism, making markets progressive." codirector of the center for economic and policy research. so, after at least after a dozen different public offers, countless press conferences and weeks of closed car door talks lawmakers in washington left town for the holidays on friday without an agreement to avert what we're calling the fiscal curb. a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts to take affect a week from now. a moment this week, the two sides seemed on the cusp of a deal. that would have involved at least one major concession from president obama. to cut social security benefits. the cuts wouldn't have been direct. they would have come from a tweak to the way the social security benefits are calculated. here's how it works. right now the amount of money a retireee gets from the government gets is changed due to the index. when inflakes goes up, social security recipients see their payments go up the same amount to keep u